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The NHS is supposed to pay for care for those with long-term medical needs. Those who need help with day-to-day living simply because of their old age have to pay their own way until their assets fall below £23,250.

But there have been flaws in the way past medical assessments have been carried out by some Primary Care Trusts in England. This means older people who should have received NHS care did not.

Daxa Patel, a partner with Simpson Millar Solicitors in Leeds, is working on a number of refund claims.

She says: ‘Assessments may have been done without a family knowing, or may not have been repeated when a person’s condition deteriorated.’

The Government has set a deadline of September 30 to claim in respect of care between April 2004 and March 2011.

Patel says that the claims process can be ‘a hard slog’. Each Primary Care Trust has its own assessment process, only some of which may not have complied with national standards.

Families can also submit claims in respect of those who have been in care, but have since died.